I do not think it's productive to explain the joke using the joke itself without clearly indicating that such is happening. So, It also refers to this awkward feeling when you see something (like an unmatched parentheses, speling error or a randomly-placed, comma. does not explicitly indicate the reflexive usage of the joke. I hope I'm not being overly pedantic, but my first instinct was to correct the spelling error. An an example the passage is fine, but it should be made to stand apart from the "real explanation" in some way, maybe in a callout or italicized as I have it here --Smartin (talk) 03:36, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

This reminds me of when I used to program the TI-83. It would automatically close any parentheses at the end of a line, and all the programming guides told me not to close them, since it would save a tiny bit of memory. I must have annoyed my teachers a lot when this bled over into my homework. I know I've gotten graded down for it. 70.102.89.181 04:17, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

This happens to me too!! Sometimes when I'm writing something, I don't put the closing ), though, I think this happens to most people sometimes. anyway, here's some TI-BASIC code:

-1→Xmin:1→Xmax

-1→Ymin:1→Ymax

AxesOff

Degrees

While 1

For(X,0,359,5

sin(X-120→A

sin(X→B

sin(X+120→C

Line(0,1,A,.3

Line(0,1,B,.3

Line(0,1,C,.3

Line(0,-1,-A,-.3

Line(0,-1,-B,-.3

Line(0,-1,-C,-.3

Line(.3,A,-.3,-B

Line(.3,A,-.3,-C

Line(.3,B,-.3,-A

Line(.3,B,-.3,-C

Line(.3,C,-.3,-A

Line(.3,C,-.3,-B

End

End

('s: 16

)'s: 0

(However, technically there are no ('s, because they are actually part of the For(, sin(, and Line( tokens, not the separate symbol.

I still get syntax errors when programming in other languages! 173.245.56.180 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

My hobby is (not really an hobby but a life's work (or calling)) (is explaining in detail (especially detail allowing me to indulge my hobby (not really an hobby but a life's work (or calling) where did this come from>)?

I know lisp and see the connection, but where in the comic does it actually mention programming? Parentheses are used in ordinary English too, and they also have to be paired with each other. I think this comic is actually about lack of closure in a much more general way. Only the title text brings up programming, but only in the context of parsing strings. 108.162.219.180 23:12, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Parsing strings is part of programming. The title text is part of the comic. What is the problem? \173.245.54.58 16:53, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to mention that Google's result page shows the title of this comic differently from the other xkcd comics. I think Randall broke it. 108.162.237.161 04:41, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Tools

It seems you are using noscript, which is stopping our project wonderful ads from working. Explain xkcd uses ads to pay for bandwidth, and we manually approve all our advertisers, and our ads are restricted to unobtrusive images and slow animated GIFs. If you found this site helpful, please consider whitelisting us.